


Companionship

by DyslexicBookwyrm72, Lillian_Williams



Series: They Had Feelings For Each Other [5]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angry Crowley (Good Omens), Anxious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Dissociation, Drinking to Cope, Feelings, Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M, Sad Crowley (Good Omens), To The Pain
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-27 20:36:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20766584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DyslexicBookwyrm72/pseuds/DyslexicBookwyrm72, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lillian_Williams/pseuds/Lillian_Williams
Summary: All living things have the same basic needs:FoodWaterShelterSafetyAnd CompanionshipA collections of stories about an angel and a demon. Miracles not included. Apocalypse sold separately.An angel without a demon attempts to fill the time until his friends return





	1. The Last Thing Left In Pandoras' Box

Aziraphale had never been the quarrelling sort. It's what made him such a bad soldier. He had a rather all-purpose loathing for confrontation. But the day Crowley handed him that cursed slip of paper in St. James park Aziraphale finally understood how one person could stay cross at someone for longer than a day. 

He had expected Crowley to contact him at some point between now and when Aziraphale noticed the ethereal silence but noooooo. From what the angel could see, there was nothing between him and Eternity except creation's shadow. He couldn't find Crowley anywhere. It was supposed to be him and the demon till the world ended, but now it was just him till the end of eternetttttyyyyyyyyy.

He couldn't find Crowley anywhere and not for lack of trying. 

Aziraphale looked everywhere.

Crowley was not in the park,  
Not the bandstand,  
Not the ruins of places they had once visited long before the modern era reared its head.  
Not heaven,  
Not hell,  
Not the places outside and in-between.  
Crowley was gone. So was the part of Aziraphale that lived with Crowley. The part that laughed at tawdry jokes, that would go 'in' through a door clearly marked 'out', the part that told people 'no' when they needed to hear it, was gone as well. Without a demon to tempt him the only voice whispering in his ear...was the celestial harmonies.

After centuries of avoiding his superiors, to the best of his ability, he reported for an assignment.

"Principality Aziraphale, Guardian of the Eastern Gate, Brandisher of the Flaming Sword, you are charged with directing the hand of fate. Release this mortal from his earthly coil and report back when he has been dealt with."

His target was a Duke, An Arche Duke, A Ferdinand, of Austria. He didn't bother to research his target. He had no one to tell his stories to, so what's it matter if he remembers the details.  
In usual angel fashion, he never dirtied his hands. It wasn't his way. 

He got a mortal to do it — a poor, disenfranchised worker, desperate for a government that treated him like a person.

Aziraphale went on like this for too long.

Orchestrating battle after battle, war after war. Racking up a body count that would have made Crowley blush - if he were here to see it.

Every time the good guys won, Aziraphale was there. 

Every time they lost, he was there too. 

The angel had begun to feel the way he had felt in The Beginning the faces started to blur and the screams stopped filling the silence, and all the celestial harmonies in the world could not make up for the lack of one soul's song. 

Crowley was dead, and it was all Aziraphale's fault.

Aziraphale knew he was crafted to kill, but he never thought it was who he really was. But Crowley proved him wrong. Guess the demon got the last laugh.

It's hard to say which was worse the long nights or the slow days. To an immortal, it was all one. Aziraphale spent most of his time, outside of his heavenly duties, at the shoppe. Alone. Listening to the silence, hoping against hope that he would hear the ringing in the distance. 

Souls, you see, have a sound. Crowley's was a ringing. Not a high pitched ringing like a hearing-aid in need of a new battery. Not the ringing of a school bell or a church bell. Not an alarum' bell. It was a sound unique to him. Aziraphale couldn't compare it to anything else because it was the only thing in the universe that sounded like that. It might have been a little pitchy and sharp to some ears, but to Aziraphale, that sound was stored in the same place in his mind as the smell of old books and fresh-cut grass. Or the feel of his favourite cardigan and fuzzy socks. It was a sound of the comfortingly familiar. It was the sound of his friend's soul. And he could hear it ANYWHERE.

He could hear it even when they were separated by a great distance, even when Crowley ventured to the edge of his known universe, Aziraphale could still hear him. Sometimes it grew faint. Those were the days he checked on Crowley. But, for years... the ringing had been absent. Completely and utterly devoid of that marrow-deep, familiar hum. Sometimes he focused so hard on looking for that sound he almost discorporated himself.

He wasn't mad at Crowley. He was mad at himself. 

Was he so bad a friend? 

Was he so oblivious to Crowley's pain?

What had been going on that made Crowley want to quit?

Things were rough but surely not as bad as all that. Death by holy water, for a demon, wasn't death. 

It was oblivion. 

It erased them from existence on a level so deep, and so small, the folks at a quantum physics lab won't have a class system for particles that size for another 267 years, 8 months, 6 hours, and some moments.

To be a demon, dousing ones-self in holy water, was to bathe in the waters of obliteration. 

He was gone.

Well and truly gone

Forever.

And when an angel or a demon said forever... they meant it. 

Aziraphale was going to be alone. 

For the rest of time, and probably even after that.  
And he had single-handedly laid the path to this predicament. Without the holy water, Crowley would still be here. Maybe hiding on some distant planet, but he would still BE. Even if he were at the edge of the world where the Old Gods slept, he would still, at the very least, exist. If nothing else Aziraphale could listen to the flickering sound of his souls ring. Like hearing music from another room. That alone would be enough to sate the silence. 

But no.

He was gone.

And it was all Aziraphale's' fault. 

So the angel spent a great many hours sitting in the shoppe. Glancing about the room like he might look over to the empty couch and see Crowley there. He hadn't been there any of the previous time he had looked but maybe... just maybe... he would be there this time. 

After nearly a century of this, Aziraphale started to venture again. Without intention, he found himself going through the motions of their friendship. He would pick the same restaurants and order the same food and sit in the same spots that he would when he was with Crowley... but he did it all alone. After a while, he thought maybe Crowley wouldn't, or rather couldn't come to the shoppe anymore. So if he came looking for him out in the world, it would be best for him to be somewhere that Crowley was familiar with. 

The worst days... or nights... were the ones where he turned to speak to the demon, but he wasn't there.

"Crowley did you see that adorable dog he was so-," many a sentence in the last hundred years had ended like the dropping of a guillotine. With a lump the size of a planet forming in the angel's throat every time he was reminded of how well and truly alone he was. 

Humans are pack animals — creatures of tribe, and home and hearth.  
Angels are not. They group, not as a family, but as alabaster soldiers. Incapable of forming the bonds familiar to their earthly counterparts. Angels, when left alone, will not seek out one another. Angels don't hang out and go to the pub. They don't pop over to the local tea shop for a cuppa. They won't travel distances for that one sushi restaurant that uses saffron in the ramen. They won't go the extra mile just for fun. 

Fun is not in their programming.

Friendship was not in their programming.

Angels were not built to be codependent. 

They were obedient.

Aziraphale was very bad at being a good angel. 

Crowley was the only soul that made him feel normal. Around him, Aziraphale wasn't weird. He just was. Now he was back to being the angel who couldn't cut it. 

The weakling who spared mortals. 

The soldier who couldn't follow orders.

As the Americans would say: to his heavenly peers, he was about as useful as tits on a mule. With Crowley gone, it was just him and the din of his own thoughts. Sometimes he would go so long without speaking that the flesh on his lips would all but fuse together and he would have to use a balm to separate them again.

Holidays were hard. 

Angels and demons didn't celebrate holidays, but Aziraphale did. He loved Christmas. He also loved All Hallows Eve, but he would never tell the demon that. Not that he was around to tell.

The first dozen Christ Masses he went through without Crowley were hard. Seeing Crowley in the paper popper crown was one of the great joys of his mortal calendar year. 

But no. 

He tried to keep up appearances and go through the motions but finding the energy to do anything other than sit in the shoppe and listen to the void was difficult. He was so distracted by his omnipresent hunt for Crowley that he ACTUALLY SOLD BOOKS. They weren't first editions or anything but still. 

Sometimes Aziraphale wondered if the Almighty had planned this from the get-go. Wondered if there was some point to his pain. If the Almighty was testing him. If they gave him a friend, just to see how he would react to having that same said friend taken away.  
He hoped not... somehow... that would be worse.

Sometimes Aziraphale would sit in St. James park for days. Hiding himself from mortal gazes, he would sit and scan up and down the pathways his head on a perpetual swivel. There are a lot of unpleasant things about being bad at being an angel, and one of the things high on that list is the ever-present hope.

Angels can't feel hope. Because they don't know what it feels like to lose. To have ones plan thwarted. To be told no. Hope is only for those who understand what it's like to be kicked in the gut by life.  
Aziraphale unlike, perhaps, every other angel in the whole of creation had hope.

It was one of the pieces of himself that he could not wish away. No matter how bad things got. And they had some low points over the ages. It didn't matter to him because if Aziraphale knew anything about the world, about the universe, about the Almighty... it's that...in the end...everything would work out. 

So...

Even though-

Every.

Single.

Scrap. 

Of evidence tells Aziraphale that his friend is no more than quarks of dust in the fabric of space. He went out looking for him  
Every  
Single  
Day. 

Because Aziraphale was cursed with unwavering hopefulness. 

Mortals think it's easy being an optimist.

They are incorrect. 

Every time the angels turned his head and found nothing but naked apes in noose-necked ties, he recalled what it felt like to be pierced by a weapon in battle. 

Every time he walked into the shoppe, or the bandstand or the sushi place, or the ice cream pop up, and Crowley wasn't there, Azeriphale felt like someone was coiling hot barbed wire in his gut.  
Loneliness was not a feeling he could express to Any. Living. Thing. Angels did not feel loneliness. Loneliness is for creatures that seek companionship. 

And as it's been said. 

Angels are not pack animals. 

Not only was Aziraphale without a friend, he was without a single soul in the whole universe with whom he could relate. It was the kind of solitude that not even Mr. Márquez could fathom. For decades he didn't know how to describe the feeling that consumed him. There was no word in the angelic tongue for being lonely. He had no idea what was wrong with him. He just knew Crowley would make it better, even if he couldn't fix it. A burden shared is a burden halved. 

After another decade of solitude reared its head, Aziraphale had finally had enough. 

He forgot about him. 

Not in the fading way that mortals forget. 

He took every second they had spent together. Every. Single memory. Every single mental association. Every little thing that made him think of Crowley. He took it and put it in a little box in the Myelin sheath between the fabric of existing and non-existing and told his brain... if he ever heard the sound again to return his memories but until that day. He, for his own health, he would go through life as if he had never known a friend. 

It wasn't easier. 

But it was bearable. 

He could live with being numb.

After all...

He was an angel. 

It was a rather normal sort of day, with a normal sort of morning. The angel took his usual path, to his usual park to the ice cream stand that was always near the cedar tree. It was spring. He got cherry. Aziraphale watched with fixed attention as the man pressed scoop after scoop into the cone.

Then a noise filled his ears — a distant ringing noise like when a mortal loses a bit of their hearing. The angel dug the heel of his palm into his ears. But the sound wouldn't go away.

He looked around...no one else seemed to be hearing anything out of the ordinary, or if they did made no show of it. The ringing got louder, clearer. Like a boat coming to dock in the earliest hours of the morning. Its shape nought but a phantom in the fog. 

The angel numbly handed the man his allotted currency squeezing his eyes shut as his vision was flooded with a tidal wave of flickering memories. He groped for the outstretched ice cream cone. Utterly blinded, deafened- nay struck wholly dumb by the aeons of moments poring into his mind. All he could see was a singular face. All he could hear was THAT RINGING growing ever closer, ever clearer. When he returned to his present moment. Here on earth. Holding a cherry ice cream cone in his favourite waistkit. Someone spoke to him. But this time he saw the ice cream server react to the sound.

So it wasn't in his head. 

"I beg your pardon?" Aziraphale asked scrunching his brows together as he turned to face the bench behind him

"I said did ya get one for me, angel." The demon sat, seemingly, without a care in the world. Arm draped across the back of the bench, legs spaced enough to take up the whole bench, feet and hands loose, like a man lounging in his own living room. Aziraphale couldn't describe his fashion, but it was his usual shining black number. And as always he wore a bright, beaming, razor-sharp smile.

"Oh, COme On!" The ice cream server protested as the cone slipped from the angel's limp fingers.

Aziraphale stood there for a few moments saying nothing. Moving, not an inch. Just staring and blinking. After taking a few moments to reassess his worldview. The angel twitched back to life.

"They have cherry. Should I get two?" Aziraphale asked, already turning over his shoulder to place his order.

"Sure angel anything you want. I'm just glad to be home." Crowley said, lacing his fingers behind his head a softer smile warming his face as his eyes shut contentedly behind his dark-coloured glasses. The angel thought he could hear a bird singing.


	2. Crowley's Second Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All living things have the same basic needs:  
Food  
Water  
Shelter  
Safety  
And Companionship
> 
> A collections of stories about an angel and a demon. Miracles not included. Apocalypse sold separately.
> 
> A demon loses his angel and all two of his feelings get set on fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My laptop is no longer a giant brick, so back to writing!  
Welcome to the pain chapters, readers  
Comments are good, they fuel the writing process
> 
> This one's for you buddy! @Lillian_Williams

** **

**Crowley's Second Fall  
**

Crowley was cold. Crowley was wet. Oh, and the world was ending. And the only person he genuinely cared about had been killed. He reached out for that overly bright spot in the world that meant he could walk through whatever door the angel was behind and there Aziraphale would be, but it was gone. So would the world in a few hours.

Good.

There wasn't really a point to it anymore. Who cared what happened to it now that there wasn't anybody to share it with...

Demons weren't supposed to want to share things. You shouldn't trust anyone, especially when you're a demon. Demons were supposed to be selfish, self-serving monsters whose existence was to make the world worse and darker than it was when they arrived. Funny how it was actually the other side who'd done the world the most harm by taking out it's most important light. Well, the only light that mattered.

Demons liked to be alone. Demons didn't like angels. Demons were supposed to be unfeeling. Demons didn't love anything or anyone. Demons didn't have anyone they'd call a friend.

Crowley had to be the worst demon of them all.

He'd been a terrible angel, that's for sure. Otherwise, he wouldn't be a demon now, would he? Crowley wanted to be Crowley. And Crowley knew that what he needed to be Crowley was to be able to share who that was with Aziraphale. Acting like something only works for so long before it becomes who you are inside. Aziraphale might talk crossly at him for some of the things the demon had done, but he'd never judged him for them. Never booted him out the door with a notice to never return. Even when realities and continents separated them, their friendship hadn't wavered. At least on Crowley's side. He'd had the angel with him at the start of everything that existed here. Without the angel, what was the point? Collect souls to maintain compliance? Bugger the compliance reports. He'd made most of them up anyway.

Why should he care about anything if he was all alone? Crowley knew what loneliness felt like, the complete severing of you from all things. To be abandoned to the void without a single thing to tie you to anyone or anything. Without any answers as to why it was that you weren't worth it to anyone when there were so many others that didn't get tossed into the rubbish at the first annoyance. Lost in the universe without a purpose, only to be found by those who'd assisted in your lot and then being handed a new one that left you more alone than you had felt at the start.

But then you'd come out the other side and found something that made you happy, made you feel like you had a place and that it was a good one. Someone that didn't keep you around because they needed something from you, but because they genuinely wanted you around. The feeling of being wanted, not just tolerated or viewed as an asset to be used and thrown away. Having someone ask how your day was and actually care how you answered. Listening when you went on about the trivial things that you thought only you cared about, and them remembering what you said and how you felt. And you feeling the same way about them in return. Then the axe fell, and you were left alone and worse off for knowing that it didn't have to be that way…

Crowley gripped the Bentley's steering wheel until the leather groaned in protest.

Out of all the plans he had come up with the only acceptable one would be to get absolutely pissed at the pub. Aziraphale would hate that. Crowley angry and drinking enough to kill a…. kill a… a...an elephant. Yeah. He'd drink his own weight in whiskey, enough to kill an elephant. That'd help. At least it'd dull the pain of hellfire in the pit they'd throw him into once he was found out and brought before the Dark Council.

The demon was familiar with the pit.

Crowley had been in a pit for what felt like a decade or two. Possibly once before that, for a decent while longer than time can account for after he first Fell, but he refused to remember that part of his history. His second incarceration hadn't been as long as it felt, but time worked differently there. He'd been ripped apart and tossed in the deepest hole they could find to account for his "overwhelming laziness" and "lack of complying with orders", which he felt was unfair with sloth being a deadly sin an' all. They'd let him out eventually, around 1917, after some misconception of him working a long play on Earth that had finally panned out.

Crowley remembered seeing the seediest little pub five or so streets down. Aziraphale would tell him it was not safe to go there and that they should just go back to his shop, he had some rather lovely scotch from somebody that he'd dealt with trying to bribe him out of something of his collection. He drove directly on the sidewalk, waiting for the call saying Aziraphale felt that he was putting himself in unnecessary danger. But the call didn't come. Neither did it come as he started throwing things out the window, sometimes at people, sometimes at things that his angel would have pointed out as they'd pass. When all that was left was the book, Crowley slammed on his breaks staring at it. Aziraphale would never forgive him if he tossed the book.

Crowley wouldn't either he supposed, tears welling up.

He was unforgivable already, but getting rid of the book would cross a line that he needed to keep in place. So, Crowley tucked it into his jacket and slithered out of the Bentley.

It was dirty, dark with the worst looking types you could hope for; perfect.

Winding his way up to the bar, he waited for the bartender to notice him so he'd have time to choose his last drink. Before the barman could ask, Crowley threw what appeared to be a black credit card at him.

"I want the Talisker. That card'll be good until Armageddon comes" Crowley hissed. The bartender got down the most expensive bottle and a glass, pouring him a double. Crowley swiped the bottle, downing the drink as he sauntered toward the nearest table.

"Just keep ‘em coming," Crowley waved the bottle at the man who looked suspiciously at the lanky stranger. After running the card, the bartender shrugged, then went about his business. Crowley poured the first glass to near the rim. Down it went, then he poured another glass. Drink and pour. Drink and pour. Pretty soon, Crowley went to pour another drink, but only a few drops came out.

"Oi!! What did I say, man?" Crowley snarled at the bartender holding his now empty bottle by the neck, the bottom rolling and tapping across the table. The bartender glowered at him. Crowley made a face when the human turned his back to reach for a new bottle. The demon reached out to grab at the bottle when it came within reach, beginning his ritual again. This time though, he only got to the second drink as the effects of the first bottle finally set in.

Crowley rested his chin on the table, swirling the whiskey around the glass, his mind wandering back through time piecing together how exactly everything had got so rotten. After a few more moments, everything he was feeling built up to boiling over. Tipping point being when he looked up to ask his friend if it had been the 17th century or the 18th century that they hadn't found each other in time to stop that terrible battle in the North. Aziraphale wasn't there. Three more seconds and neither was the smokey liquid in his glass.

Thankfully, no one at the bar cared about any of the other patrons. It also helped that once the alcohol had utterly soaked in, the first thing out of Crowley's mouth had been the raspy cry of "I didn't want to Fall from Heaven!", clearing a good two table perimeter. _That's one of the perks of being alone. No one cares what happens to you, so your actions only affect you,_ thought Crowley as he poured another glass. As he downed the glass with a flourish of almost dropping it, his mind began to spiral.

_Didn't mean to Fall…_

_Hung out with the wrong people…_

_Just so lonely up there in the stars…_

_I didn't do anything wrong, why'd You make me leave?…_

_You let them ask questions, and you still love them…_

_I know I was gonna have to live through The End, but I had someone to be with me…_

_Never had a real friend then You let them kill him…_

_Aziraphale was so good he deserved so much more…_

_Why did he have to die…_

_Why?_

_Why?_

_WHY?!_

Emotions that made him uncomfortable had always been something Crowley continuously struggled with keeping in check. But now tears trailed solemnly down his face, head in his hands. Sadness hurt too much. Anger though… The demon dropped his hands, sitting up in his seat, swaying. Anger was very familiar to Crowley. He was great at it! With that in mind, he raised the bottle to smash it. Light glinted off the bottle catching his attention.

Looking down, he saw that there was still a good amount of whiskey in the bottle. Pouring as much as the glass would hold, the demon looked down at his drink, working his jaw furiously. He downed half the glass. None of this was fair. Things shouldn't be as they were, none of it was fine. Everything was terrible. He drank the rest of the glass down, swishing the whiskey around his mouth with a grimace before raising it to the bartender.

"Same again."

When the bartender came to drop off the new bottle, he gingerly set it down and retreated as quickly as possible. Crowley watched him walk away, looking at what he assumed was up, and began his angry, if not confusing, rambling.

"I never asked to be a demon. I was just minding my own business one day, and then… oh, lookie here, it's Lucifer and the guys… "

He spent the next half hour, what the few people still close enough to hear assumed, venting. As usual, there was no response to his definitely-not-prayers, but that didn't stop the conversation the demon was having with anyone who was listening. As he talked, Crowley's memories began to get the best of him again. At least he'd stopped crying. Rocking slightly with a frown at the ground, he tried to get back to where the anger was, but couldn't find a place that didn't lead back to the sadness.

Crowley's mind went from anger at why his questioning at landed him a one-way drop into the universe's worst hot spring, to the confusion he'd felt when the rebellion had been sentenced to exile and him along with it when all he'd done was ask why things had to be the way they were. Rebelling hadn't been something the demon had wanted to do, until it was the only option he could live with doing for the rest of eternity. He remembered the sheer panic as he plummeted, as the heat of his descent had blackened his wings. Crowley'd lost his light only to gain more exclusion as the questions that got him banned from the only place he had known as home, made him an outsider in Hell.

Once he'd been assigned to Earth though, he'd found a new home. Home being a loose term. Could home be a person? People describe their homes with feelings and smells and memories. Crowley could describe who he thought of as home with those same things. Happiness, almost too sweet ethereal light with a bit of warm leather and paper, and… Crowley's jaw clenched. Well, didn't matter now, did it? Home had been destroyed beyond recovery, and he was completely alone.

His flare of anger was almost about to fade into despair. Then he saw the bottle. Well, bottles. Focusing on anything had gone out the window a fair bit ago. Squinting down his nose, he snatched at the most substantial looking one. Nope. Not that one. The one next to it? Yeah, there we go. Crowley bit at his top lip. Now he had to open it. He tried sticking his tongue out of the corner of his mouth to focus better, but the cork still wouldn't come out. Crowley let out a sigh, as he breathed in he felt that spot in his chest begin to lighten. Had he drank too much? Definitely not, since he was still conscious. He looked down at the bottle, trying to determine if it might be causing this, twisting at the cork again. The feeling kept growing, warm and loving. Crowley only felt that when Aziraphale came into his presence. The demon's jaw opened in confusion. He sniffed at the air. Across from him, the world started to get brighter and less painful; a figure began forming. A familiar figure that he would know in anywhere, in any world.

"Aziraphale?"


End file.
